Payment analytics explained: how to boost revenue and reduce failed payments

Key takeaways

• Payments are full of hidden data. Every transaction carries insights into customer behaviour, approval rates, and cash flow, but many businesses never see them.

• Understanding your payments can boost growth. Analysing declines, settlement times, and FX costs helps you recover lost revenue, improve checkout success, and strengthen liquidity.

• Airwallex gives you clarity and control. With built-in analytics across currencies and markets, Airwallex lets you see, understand, and act on your payment data, all in one place.

You already track revenue, costs, and conversions, but how closely do you track the payments behind them?

If some payments fail, take days to arrive, or cost more in fees than expected, you might not know where the problem starts. That’s where payment analytics come in.

Payment analytics help you see what’s happening behind every transaction: which payments succeed, which fail, and why. They reveal the patterns that affect cash flow, approval rates, and customer experience, which can shape your bottom line.

In this guide, we explain what payment analytics are, the metrics worth tracking, and how to start using them to make smarter, faster financial decisions.

What payment analytics are and why they matter in 2026

Payment analytics are the process of collecting, analysing, and acting on data from your payment tools. They show what really happens from the moment a customer clicks “pay” to the moment funds land in your account.

With payment analytics, you can see which payments are approved, which fail, how long settlements take, and how much you’re paying in fees. You can also uncover hidden issues, such as repeated declines in a certain market or rising chargebacks on a specific product, before they start affecting revenue.

In simple terms, payment analytics help you answer three key questions:

• How well are my payments performing across channels, methods, and markets?

• Where are friction points or failures reducing conversion and cash flow?

• How can I improve payments to increase revenue and lower costs?

Once you have those answers, payments become a useful source of insight for smarter business decisions.

Why payment analytics will improve your revenue, conversion, and cash flow in 2026

Payments impact customer experience, cash flow, and profitability. Payment analytics help you manage these outcomes by turning operational data into actionable insight.

Here’s where that can make a difference:

1. More checkout conversions

If you see a high rate of payment declines, it might not be customer errors. Analytics can reveal which issuers or methods cause friction and help you adjust routing or retry logic to increase approval rates.

2. Fewer failed or declined payments

Failed recurring payments are a silent revenue leak. With analytics, you can track retry performance, identify patterns, and use smart scheduling to recover failed charges automatically.

Read more: A smarter way to get paid: Exploring the power of recurring payments

3. Earlier fraud detection

Real-time analytics helps you spot unusual activity before it becomes a loss. You can monitor velocity patterns, mismatched geographies, or repeated small transactions that signal potential fraud.

4. More accurate cash flow forecasts

Knowing when payments settle and how currency fluctuations affect your funds lets you forecast liquidity with better precision. For international businesses, this also helps plan for FX exposure.

5. Happier customers

When billing is smooth, customers stay with you. Monitoring billing success rates and proactive retry strategies can improve retention and reduce churn.

The payment metrics that reveal where you are losing money

Payment analytics only become useful when you know which numbers to focus on and how to interpret them. These are the metrics that reveal where payments succeed, where they fail, and how to improve them.

Authorisation rate

This measures the percentage of transactions approved by issuing banks. You can find it in your payment provider’s dashboard or reports. Track it daily and segment by card type, country, or acquirer. If it dips, review routing rules or retry logic to improve success rates.

Decline rate

The inverse of authorisation rate, this shows how often payments are rejected. Look for decline codes in your analytics dashboard or settlement reports. Common causes include insufficient funds, expired cards, or issuer restrictions. Fixing high decline rates can immediately lift conversion and revenue.

Retry success rate

This shows how often a failed payment later succeeds when retried. It is especially important for subscription or recurring billing models. Many providers show this in recurring payments or dunning reports. Use it to fine-tune retry timing and messaging to recover more revenue automatically.

Chargeback rate

This measures the number of transactions disputed by customers. It’s available through your payment processor or chargeback management tool. A rate below 1% is healthy. Rising chargebacks can signal unclear billing descriptors, delivery issues, or fraud, which are all problems you can address before they grow.

FX cost and currency exposure

If you sell across borders, check how much revenue you lose to currency conversion and settlement delays. Your provider or finance team can usually extract this from transaction-level data. Tracking this helps you time conversions better and choose local settlement currencies to protect your margin.

Read more: The real cost of going global: How to navigate cross-border fees

Time to settlement

This is how long it takes for authorised funds to reach your account. You can find it in payout or reconciliation reports. The shorter the gap, the healthier your cash flow. If delays grow, check whether specific payment methods or partners are slowing fund movement.

Acceptance by location or method

This shows which payment methods or regions perform best. Most analytics tools can filter by geography, card type, or local scheme. Compare authorisation rates and fees to decide where to expand or which methods to promote at checkout.

How to start using payment analytics

Now you know which metrics matter, the next step is putting payment analytics into practice. The goal is to move from scattered data to a clear, unified picture of how your payments perform, and how that performance affects revenue, customers, and cash flow.

You don’t need to be a data scientist to start. What matters most is structure and consistency. Here’s what to do.

1. Centralise your payment data

If your payments run through multiple gateways, processors, or currencies, bring everything together in one place. Start with your payment provider’s reporting tools, or connect your data to a spreadsheet or business intelligence platform like Power BI or Looker. The aim is to see all your transactions (successful, failed, or pending) in one view.

2. Connect analytics to your finance and product tools

Your finance team needs accuracy, and your product team needs visibility. By linking payment data with your accounting or ERP software, you can automate reconciliation, reduce errors, and see how checkout or pricing changes affect payment success.

3. Build dashboards for live and historical insight

Dashboards let you track what’s happening right now and what has changed over time. Start simple: monitor approval rates, declines, and settlement times. As you gain confidence, layer in fraud, FX, and retry analytics to understand the full payment journey.

4. Segment your analysis

Totals only tell part of the story. Break down your data by country, payment method, device type, or customer group. You may find that mobile users in one region have higher failure rates or that certain currencies take longer to settle. Segmentation turns averages into actionable insight.

5. Align teams around the same data

Payment analytics is most powerful when everyone sees the same numbers. Create shared dashboards for finance, product, and risk teams so that when authorisation rates drop or costs rise, all departments can respond.

Read more: What is accounting reconciliation and how does it work?

How leading businesses use payment analytics to drive results

Here are five ways businesses use them to drive measurable results.

1. Detecting and recovering revenue leakage

Recurring payments often fail because of expired cards, insufficient funds, or network issues. These failures add up over time. By tracking decline codes, retry outcomes, and customer segments, you can spot the causes of failed payments and build smarter retry logic. For example, automatically retrying after 24 hours or switching to a backup method can recover that lost revenue.

2. Reducing FX losses on global transactions

If your business sells in multiple currencies, small differences in conversion rates or settlement currencies can erode profit. Analytics helps you monitor FX costs in real time, see which currencies drive the highest margin, and decide when to convert funds. Pair this insight with a provider that lets you hold and settle in multiple currencies to minimise unnecessary conversions (Airwallex is great for this).

3. Optimising payment routing for better performance

Every region has its quirks. Some acquirers perform better in specific markets or for particular card types. Analytics reveals these patterns, showing where transactions are approved quickly and where they fail. You can then route payments through the best-performing acquirer or local payment rail to increase authorisation rates and reduce processing fees.

4. Benchmarking performance across methods and markets

Comparing authorisation, decline, and chargeback rates between payment methods, currencies, or geographies helps you identify where improvement will have the greatest impact. For example, you might discover that digital wallets perform better in Asia while cards lead in Europe. This insight supports smarter market prioritisation and checkout design.

5. Informing product, pricing, and checkout design

Analytics can reveal which payment methods your customers prefer, how often they complete checkout, and when they abandon it. Use this data to refine your user experience. Highlight the right payment options, simplify the process, and make pricing clear in local currencies. Small changes informed by analytics can lead to major conversion gains.

The payment analytics tools worth using in 2026

The tools you choose here determine how easily you can move from data to action. Whether you prefer a ready-made dashboard or a custom-built analytics stack, here are your options.

1. Fintech platforms with built-in analytics

Modern financial platforms such as Airwallex include analytics by default. You can view authorisation rates, FX costs, and settlement times directly in your dashboard without exporting data. These tools are best if you want instant visibility and minimal setup. Finance teams can monitor cash flow and FX exposure in real time, while product or operations teams can act quickly on payment trends.

How to use them:

Log into your provider dashboard regularly to review trends. Export data monthly for deeper review. Use filters to compare by country, currency, or method.

2. Payment gateways with reporting features

Gateways like Stripe or Adyen offer transaction reports showing authorisation, declines, and chargebacks. These are helpful for understanding individual gateway performance but often miss the full picture if you use multiple acquirers or currencies.

How to use them:

Download daily or weekly reports and consolidate them in a single sheet or BI tool. Segment by region or method to see where a specific gateway performs better or worse.

3. Business intelligence integrations

If you already use tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or Looker, connect them to your payment data sources via API. This allows you to combine transaction insights with marketing, product, or finance data. You can visualise performance across the entire customer journey from checkout to retention.

How to use them:

Build dashboards that refresh automatically. Create alerts for changes in authorisation or chargeback rates. Share insights with teams responsible for checkout optimisation or pricing.

4. Revenue intelligence platforms

These go further by linking payments with customer lifetime value, churn, and billing behaviour. They are useful for SaaS or subscription models where payment success directly impacts retention.

How to use them:

Set KPIs that tie payment success to churn or renewal rates. Use cohort analysis to see how billing improvements translate into long-term customer value.

How Airwallex simplifies advanced payment analytics

Airwallex brings all your payment data together in one simple view, so you can see what’s working, fix what’s not, and plan ahead with confidence. Instead of switching between tools, you can track payments, fees, and currency movements in real time in one place. 

With Airwallex you get:

Unified view across currencies and entities. You can see every transaction from every market in one dashboard, whether it is in pounds, euros, or dollars. This helps you understand where your money is, how it moves, and where revenue might be leaking.

Clear FX and fee transparency. Every payment shows the exact FX rate and fee applied, so you can see what each sale is really worth. This helps you protect margins, especially when selling across borders.

Smart rules and automation. You can set simple rules that act on what the data shows, such as sending failed payments for retry, or routing transactions through the cheapest or fastest network. These automations save time and improve success rates.

Real-time monitoring for global operations. Instead of waiting for end-of-day reports, Airwallex updates continuously. You can see authorisation and settlement data as it happens, making it easier to spot issues before they affect cash flow or customer experience.

Easy integration with finance and analytics tools. Airwallex connects with your accounting, ERP, or BI systems so payment data flows straight into your reports. This means finance and product teams always work from the same information without manual exports.

Why seeing every payment clearly gives you a competitive edge

The more insight you have into every transaction, the easier it is to optimise conversions, cash flow, and customer trust.

Airwallex brings all of this together in one platform. You can collect, analyse, and act on payment data instantly, with built-in tools for FX management, reconciliation, and automation. That means less time piecing together reports and more time doing things that actually improve performance.

FAQs

What’s the first step to start using payment analytics?

Begin by centralising your payment data. Most payment providers offer dashboards or exports that show authorisation rates, declines, and fees. Combine these in one place, such as a spreadsheet or BI tool, to get a full view of your performance before you start analysing trends.

How often should I review payment analytics?

Weekly reviews work well for most businesses, though high-volume companies may prefer daily checks. Frequent monitoring helps you spot changes early (for example, rising decline rates or settlement delays) before they affect revenue.

Do I need special software to analyse payments?

No. Many platforms, including Airwallex, provide built-in analytics that show key metrics like FX costs, authorisation rates, and settlement times. For deeper insight, you can connect your payment data to tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or Looker.

What’s the most important metric to track first?

Start with your authorisation rate. It directly affects how much revenue you collect. If authorisations are low, investigate decline codes, retry performance, and acquirer performance to identify where payments are being lost.

How can payment analytics improve customer retention?

Failed or delayed payments are a common cause of customer churn. Analytics helps you identify the reasons for failed transactions and fix them, so customers experience fewer interruptions.

How does Airwallex help with payment analytics?

Airwallex combines payments, FX, and reconciliation data in one place. You can see every transaction across currencies and markets, monitor fees in real time, and automate actions like retries or routing. That means less manual analysis and faster, data-driven decisions.